Dark New World
by Andrea Tyler
Summary: Previously titled 'The End of Normalcy.' This story will revolve around several characters with multiple POVs. This is my first fanfiction, so reviews, suggestions, and ideas are very much appreciated. Rated M for colorful words!
1. 1: Normal Day

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­Chapter 1: Normal Day

* * *

"Talking"

_'Thinking'_

_Stressed

* * *

_

The alarm clock in Michelle Carlson's apartment bedroom wailed that six o' clock had indeed arrived, and a thin, deeply tanned arm reached out from under the blankets, and well-manicured fingers groped for the heavily worn 'off' button. It might have been Monday. It might have been Tuesday. It might have even been Sunday to the apartment's occupant, for the mind-numbing normalcy of every day's unchanging morning routine. Every day started out at the same time, at the very least. Today just happened to be Saturday.

The young woman slid out from under the covers, her light blonde-highlighted hair a tangled mess that framed a rather thin face. She mumbled something about 'nothing to fucking wear' as she sifted through the layers of clothing that hung in the tiny corner closet. After a brief but hot shower, Michelle walked to the fridge, opened the door, but closed it after a split second. She didn't need to eat. She wasn't hungry. She pulled on her leather jacket and clicked the lock of her apartment door shut, walking resolutely towards the stairs that would take her to the main floor.

She wasn't hungry. She didn't need it.

And so she repeated those two sentences all the way down the stairs, across the lobby, and down the road to her job, until the sounds of the world around her waking up drowned out her thoughts and allowed her mind to stray to other topics. And so the grumbling of her stomach went ignored.

From behind the front counter at the 24/7, Michelle turned the knob on the dusty radio and winced at the burst of feedback before wrenching the cord out of the wall socket out of sheer irritation, knocking the radio to the floor. She had a pounding headache, and all that seemed to be playing was a crapload of talk shows.

"Hey," a quiet voice sounded from behind her. Michelle looked up from her kneeling position on the floor, radio in hand, and caught sight of Morton Engel, the scrawny, dark-haired youth who ran the gas station with her most mornings. He was seventeen, a full two years younger than her, and a bit of a nerd. His grin glinted metallically.

She smiled mechanically in his direction before standing up straight. He was even shorter than her, about 5' 6'' or so. He didn't take his eyes off of her, or stop smiling. Michelle was starting to get pissed off now. She knew the kid had a crush on her, and that was hardly unusual. But the obviousness of it was starting to royally piss her off. It wasn't that he wasn't nice (a bit _too_ nice, in all honesty), but he was slightly creepy in his puppy-like devotion to his daily ritual of 'saying hi,' asking how she was, and whatever rubbish excuse he could come up with to not leave her alone. And it wouldn't do for her, Michelle, the former Prom Princess, the gossip queen of her old high school, to be seen with…well, _him_.

"What is it," she asked in a hard voice, which seemed to snap Morton out of whatever perverted trance he had to have been in.

"Oh, n-nothing," he stuttered. "Just saying hi."

"Whatever," Michelle replied in the same callous tone. "I have to watch the front." Before Morton could open his mouth to say anything, another person approached the counter. It was Darren Marx, another worker, who usually didn't show up until ten. While nearing twenty-one years old, he gave the distinct impression of having not abandoned his high-school stereotypes. A former quarterback _and_ basketball player, he towered over the other two, especially so Morton, whom he seemed to have taken to intimidating.

The younger boy scurried off.

"Spill in the dairy aisle," Darren called after him, sniggering. Both he and Michelle burst out laughing when Morton veered sharply towards the refrigerators.

"What a fuckin' loser," Michelle muttered softly, pulling out a cigarette from her discarded leather jacket. "Got a light?" Darren's thick fingers fumbled with the matchbook, and after a minute Michelle was finally able to take a much-needed puff.

"So why are you here on time," She asked Darren with a slight frown, for it was common for him to not show up at all, let alone when he was supposed to. "You were on a roll."

Darren sniggered again, leaning across the counter so that his forehead nearly touched Michelle's.

"Well, actually," he began, smiling mischievously, "I _was_ gonna go hunting. Dad's got a nice place up near Canada, in, like, the middle of nowhere. And…"

"And?"

"He changed his plans, and…"

"_And?_" Michelle was smiling now.

"I thought that instead, maybe you'd like to leave this dump,"—he jerked his head slightly at the store behind him—"and go up there with me for the weekend. Just the two of us. Wadda ya think?"

Neither of them was aware of Morton watching them closely from behind the shelves.

Michelle grinned, and opened her mouth to reply, and was interrupted by the '_ding_' of the front bell. She cringed for the second time that day, and looked up at the source of the noise she so hated.

A tall, slim man with thinning hair and the distinct look of someone who had had only a couple hours of sleep, strode purposefully in their direction. Michelle's deepened scowl was reflected on his face. His dark eyes were immediately drawn to the cigarette in Michelle's fingers, and with a harsh sigh, she dropped it on the floor and crushed it before the man could even open his mouth. This man was the manager of the place, known simply as Mr. Clay. And however much she loathed following his inane, anti-smoking rules, she needed to keep this job.

"Sorry I'm late," he told the two in a voice that reflected his appearance. "There seems to be more traffic than usual. Turns out there's rioting going on in the homeless division in the cities, and people seem keen to spread out. They'll need us open. So you stay put, Carlson. Marx," he added, his scowl deepening even more at the sight of the young man, "You clean up the back room. Now."

The two men walked off, Darren looking back just long enough to wink at Michelle before crashing into the doorframe of the back room. Michelle snorted with laughter, as Mr. Clay whacked him over the head with his clipboard. Darren was nice; certainly not one of the brightest lights in the box, but sweet. And she'd have loved escaping this fucking place, if only for a weekend. God only know she had enough vacation time reserved for that.

She glared up at the bell that had so rudely interrupted her soon-to-be boyfriend's proposition.

It sat there, perched just above the door, waiting to ring its tinkling announcement that someone had entered the room. Waiting to interrupt her, Michelle's, calm morning. But then, there were riots going on…true enough; those _were_ in the cities, and that was a good thirty miles away, but still…What if they _did_ come here? Michelle supposed the bell would be having the time of its life, merrily ringing as violent thugs invaded the place.

She finally groaned exhaustedly, and looked straight ahead of her, determined to focus on something other than that horrid little contraption. And a distraction stared her right in the face, in the form of Morton. She leapt backwards at the sight of his too-pale face positioned so close to hers.

"What the hell do you _want_," she demanded in a low, angry voice, attempting to mask her momentary fear.

"He doesn't really like you, you know," Morton whispered at her, seemingly oblivious to her obvious disenchantment with him. "He'll take any girl with him. Just last week h—!"

"And what would _you_ know about dating," Michelle interrupted, her dark eyes flashing, her expression vindictive.

Morton opened his mouth, then shut it after a moment of silence. He then flushed bright red and turned back to the dairy section, not saying a word.

"What did the queer want," Darren asked suddenly, from right behind Michelle, who jumped slightly.

"Nothing," she said after a while, deciding not to mention exactly what Morton had been implying. She sure as hell didn't _like_ the kid, but there was that chance that he was at least telling the truth. At the incredulous look on Darren's face, she added, "You're not jealous, are you?" A look of revulsion crossed his face, and Michelle knew that her distraction had served its purpose. Just as long as the little nerd didn't get the wrong idea.

"Where the hell did you put the radio," Mr. Clay demanded, appearing right behind the two.

"I unplugged it," Michelle told him. "Just a bunch of talk shows with really shitty feedback. Why," she asked before she could stop herself, a habit from her high-school days.

"I got a sister in Minneapolis," he answered in a would-be casual voice, picking the radio off the floor and plugging it in. At the slightly non-plussed expression on both his employees' faces, he continued, "There were reports of rioting over there last night. There might be reports of what's going on in her area."

Michelle nodded, and watched as her supervisor adjusted the antenna and nudged the knob throughout the various stations. With the man's dark hair, slightly pale skin, and dark, sharp eyes, he could almost pass as Morton's father, if it weren't for the difference in their surnames. '_But then, he could be an uncle,_' Michelle thought to herself in mild amusement; she was quite bored. '_That would at least explain why he's allowed to work here when he's only seventeen years old_.' Then there was the possibility that Mr. Clay simply had no idea about Morton's real age.

And indeed, Morton was technically not allowed to work here, with the anti-cigarette campaign, and underage drinking problems that prevented youths from landing jobs in the very places that these commodities were sold. But what did it matter, really? Just as long as he didn't get on her nerves any more than he already was, she didn't really see the point in turning him in. He was sure as hell a better worker than either Darren or herself, in any case. A burst of feedback jolted her out of her musings.

_"There seem to be more reports of violent attacks increasing in the downtown areas of the cities, and there have also been a few reports of similar civil unrest in the outlying suburbs of Minneapolis. Any and all injured persons are to seek treatment at hospitals and other medical facilities as soon as possible; the attacks have increased in violence and number."_

"How is it," Morton's quiet voice asked unexpectedly from behind Darren and Michelle. The former sneered down at the teenager, the latter couldn't think of anything to say or do, and so she did nothing at all. But for once the boy took no notice of his two coworkers; his eyes were fixed on Mr. Clay with a strange, fierce kind of intensity that didn't seem fitting of his usually imperviously cheerful, oblivious persona.

Mr. Clay's eyes flickered to Morton's for the briefest of moments before returning to the radio, but Michelle picked up on the _look_ behind them, the distinct look of worry.

"It doesn't seem to be improving," Mr. Clay announced in an apparently casual voice, though again Michelle thought she detected the faintest note of strain. She couldn't work out whether it was because of the man's sister, or Morton. She also couldn't help but think that it might be both.

"Call her," she piped up unexpectedly, drawing the other three sets of eyes onto her.

Feeling distinctly uncomfortable under the scrutinizing gaze of Mr. Clay, she continued, "The radio won't have that much information, and if it does, it might be old by the time it gets reported. If your sister"—in spite of herself, her eyes flickered to Morton for the most fractional of seconds—"lives in the middle of it, she should be able to tell you what's going on a lot more accurately."

It was the longest and most articulate sentence she had spoken so far, and she was surprised at her sudden clarity. After a brief pause, Mr. Clay nodded once, opened up a cell phone and made his way to the glass door that led outside, the bell above the door ringing merrily. Morton made to follow him, but seemed to change his mind and instead turned and headed to the back of the store. Darren looked around at their retreating backs, then down at Michelle, who had taken up her post once more behind the counter.

"Is something going on here," he asked her, his puzzled blue eyes meeting hers. "They're acting all…weird."

"I have no idea," Michelle answered with a shrug. "I suppose Clay's just worried about his family, and Mo—Engle is worried about _him_."

"Meh…probably," Darren agreed, missing the slip-up. His face split in a wide grin. "I bet they _like_ each other."

At this, Michelle had to laugh. Then she noticed a couple crates near the supply room.

"Weren't you supposed to take care of those," she asked him, her eyebrows raised in mock question. Darren looked around at them, the laughter turning into an exasperated sigh.

"Hell if I know," he replied. "Should I go ask Dipstick out there?" He gestured towards the front door that Mr. Clay had exited.

"Nah, I'll do it," Michelle interjected, making her way to the door. "No one's here anyways. I've got nothing better to do."

And before Darren could argue, Michelle had opened the door.

Looking around, she didn't see Mr. Clay. She did, however, hear his voice from around the side of the building. She approached the corner of the gas station with expert stealth—a skill developed with four years' experience as a notorious gossip-mongerer. She felt a little bit guilty about eavesdropping on something that was bound to be personal, but her immense curiosity overpowered all. She hadn't done this in what felt like ages. She _really_ missed high school. It would be just like old times, she told herself with a slight smile.

She peeked around the corner of the brick building and saw Mr. Clay standing with his back to her; he was gazing at the trees and speaking urgently into the cell phone, his free hand covering his exposed ear.

"Carla, did you just say they were _biting_ people?" Michelle's eyes widened in interest, and she strained her ears so as to possibly hear the reply. The most she could make out, however, was a woman's strained, inscrutable voice before Mr. Clay continued. "What the Hell are the cops doing? You don't"—he broke off with a harsh sigh—"you don't know?! Carla, just look out the window and tell me what's going on!"

There was an unbearable pause, then Michelle distinctly heard a scream, and Carla's tinny voice cry out, "Oh my God!" This was too good. Michelle darted silently to the dumpster, flattening her back against it so that she was mere feet away from Mr. Clay, and could now hear every word that his sister was saying. Mr. Clay had frozen in place.

"Carla? _Carla_? What's going on? What's happening?"

"Oh, Ricky," Carla began in a hushed, panicky sort of whisper, "They're _eating_ him!"

"Carla, what—?"

"They—a couple of the rioters—chased down one of the cops, and…and…They tackled him, and—Oh, God," she broke off in a terrified whisper. "Oh no oh no oh no--!"

"Carla," Mr. Clay interrupted in that same voice of forced calm, "get away from the window."

"—oh no, oh no oh no, they must have heard me—they were looking up, they saw me!" She broke off with a loud gasp. "Th—they're not _human!_ The door! I need to block the door! Ricky," she added, and Michelle could imagine a terrified, obscure woman with dark hair and equally dark eyes that darted back and forth between a distant door and the phone in her hand, between her only protection, and her only link to the outside world.

"Tell Mort I love him," she told him in a strangely clear voice.

"No, no! Carla! Don't hang up! 'Not human?' What does that mean! What's _happening?_"

"And I love you, too, Ricky-bear," she continued, her voice still clear, though trembling somewhat; her resolve was shaky. "Tell Mom and Dad"—_'She _is_ Morton's mother, then,'_ Michelle realized—"…that I'm sorry. And that I love them. I love you all so much."

There was a heart-wrenchingly painful moment of silence that seemed to last an eternity before the other phone clicked shut. Mr. Clay remained frozen to the spot, as though he couldn't think, couldn't comprehend what had just happened.

Michelle wasn't entirely sure what to make of what she had just heard; though she knew that it wasn't good, it seemed slightly unreal to her. Rioting she could understand. Violence she could definitely understand. But _cannibalism_? The thought of what Carla must have witnessed, a couple of people savagely devouring a living, breathing person, even a cop, might have been enough to make her, Michelle, ill.

She heard footsteps approaching from the other side of the dumpster and pressed her back even closer to the dumpster. Damn it! Why hadn't she realized that Darren would come looking for her after her being gone this long? But just as she contemplated jumping out from behind the dumpster and asking Mr. Clay about those fucking crates that were still waiting to be unpacked, it occurred to her that Darren would have probably used the front door like she had. After all, why would he use the back door when it was practically on the opposite side of the building from the supply room? Then it hit her. It wasn't Darren on the other side of this dumpster. It was—

"—Morton," Mr. Clay began in a slightly alarmed voice. "Uh…w-what are you doing out here," he started again, in an unconvincingly casual voice. "You should be—"

"—Inside," Morton supplied in that uncharacteristically low voice, though now there might have been a touch of sullenness within it. "How's Mom?"

"She—she's _fine_," was the forcedly reassuring reply, and in her discomfort at the situation Michelle managed to roll her eyes at the man's overly paternal tone. "Really Mort, she's fine. She just…she—"

"—didn't sound so fine to me," Morton finished again, and Michelle, listening for it this time, heard a definite note of sullenness. Her heart skipped a beat. So he had been listening, too.

Michelle began to feel even more nervous. How the two would react when they realized their delicate (to say the least) family position had been overheard, she couldn't say. She was not remotely afraid of Morton, but she had no idea of his uncle's temperament. And she could _not_ afford to lose this job. It never occurred to her that by tomorrow, there might not be a job to return to.

"Listen Mort," Mr. Clay began in an urgent, though much less forced voice, "I still don't know what's happening. Your mother…she—she didn't know what she saw."

"I _heard_ what she saw," Morton replied, his voice firm. "She's not crazy," he added warningly.

"I never said that."

To this, the teenager did not reply. Michelle waited with bated breath for the explosion.

"I'm going to tell the others."

"We still don't know what's going on."

"Yes, we do. Mother told you."

"Your mother…she's just upset right now—"

"SHE'S NOT CRAZY," Morton yelled suddenly, his voice cracking a bit on the word 'crazy'.

"It wouldn't be the first time she's had these…'visions', Morty."

"Don't _call_ me that," Morton hissed. "It's a stupid name. It's not my name." Another unbearably loud silence passed. "You're her brother. She's probably being eaten alive, and you don't care!"

"She is not in danger," Mr. Clay said, his voice forced again. "Your mother is delusional. She's heard the reports, and…and maybe she _did_ see someone tackle the cop," he conceded, his voice starting to rise. "But _cannibalism_ is taking it too far. There's probably nothing wrong at all. This'll be done with tomorrow. Tonight, probably. There's nothing wrong! You…you'll see your mother tomorrow. She's FINE!" he shouted the last word, and it echoed across the grassy field.

"You…you don't want to admit it," Morton told his uncle in a winded, strangled voice. "You don't want to admit that she's right…because that would mean that for all these years, you were wrong…wrong about her, about everything."

"Get inside," Mr. Clay told him without missing a beat. "And…if you want to tell the others, go ahead. Fine. Just remember…remember who took care of you all these years, who gave you this job in the first place…"

But Morton had already walked off; Michelle could hear his footsteps fading on the dried grass, then the crunch of gravel that meant that he had turned the corner, probably out of sight. She dared to look around the corner of the dumpster, and saw the back of Mr. Clay's head. He was watching Morton leave. Realizing that this might be her only chance to get away unnoticed, Michelle turned and, her heart racing the entire time, quietly made her way around the brick building to the front door. She stopped just outside, however, and turned back. She might as well do what she went out to do in the first place.

"Mr. Clay," she called out in a half-hearted tone, pulling her features into the usual passive, bored expression. "Darren needs to know where those crates are supposed to go."

Mr. Clay turned to face her. The look on his face was unreadable.

"Is something wrong," she asked, knowing full well what the real answer was, but unable to resist asking nonetheless.

"Nothing that Morton won't be able to tell you," He murmured, evidently not intending her to hear it. But the wind carried every word to Michelle, who settled for looking puzzled, as though she indeed hadn't heard him.

"Did you say something," she inquired.

"The crates don't need to be unloaded just yet," Mr. Clay told her in a suddenly brisk, businesslike voice walking up to her, then matching her stride as they made their way to the front door. "That idiot boy knows better. I don't know what girls see in him," he muttered, glancing sidelong at Michelle, whose chest constricted at those words. 'Girls,' she repeated in her head mentally._ 'Girls.'_

She sighed in defeat at they entered the gas station. Morton had been right about Darren, then.

She cursed slightly when she saw that she had a customer, and quickly maneuvered around the counter so that she was in her respective post, and pulled her features into a bland smile that faltered when she looked the older man in the face.

His face was pale, ashen, and he had a distinctly ill look about him. Michelle looked down and noticed that the old man's hand was wrapped in a blood-soaked handkerchief.

"Sir, are you alright," Mr. Clay asked from behind Michelle; he had just walked out of the supply room and caught sight of his customer's wound. He nudged the shocked young woman aside and pulled the first-aid kit out from under the counter.

"It…it wasn't…" The old man's eyelids fluttered slightly, and he leaned forward on the counter, his eyes meeting Mr. Clay's. "It wasn't _human…_" Mr. Clay flinched, then pulled the wounded limb towards him. The old man flinched weakly as a cotton ball soaked in rubbing alcohol touched his exposed flesh. Michelle made out the distinct imprint of a bite mark on his hand.

Michelle looked past his shoulder and saw Morton standing a few feet back, his face whiter than usual. They met each other's gaze, and Michelle was dimly aware of her feet carrying her around the counter and towards the scrawny teenager, Mr. Clay oblivious to her leaving as he pulled out a spool of gauze and several large band-aids.

"Engle," Michelle began in a slightly strangled voice, "I heard what was going on—"

"I know," Morton interrupted with a slight grimace, his voice not as low, or nearly as sullen, as before. "I saw you through the gap between the dumpster and the wall. I'm not mad," he added at Michelle's mortified expression. "I'm glad, actually. You'd have never believed me if you hadn't heard it yourself. But now we have to get Marx to believe it."

"I'm on it," Michelle said, and the two of them set off towards the supply room, where Darren was sitting on a large crate, evidently playing a game on his cell phone.

"Darren," Michelle started, snapping the phone shut in spite of it's owner's protests. "We have a serious problem."

"What the fuck," Darren demanded, glaring from Michelle to Morton. "What the fuck is _he_ doing here?" He caught sight of the grave looks on their faces, though, and his glare softened considerably. "Okay, you've got my attention. What is it?"

"We listened in on Mr. Clay's phone call. The rioting's really bad, Darren. _Really_ bad. His sister was screaming about a couple rioters attacking someone and eating them alive."

There was a moment of stone-cold silence, during which Darren looked from Michelle's face to Morton's, and back again.

"This is a joke, right?"

"No, no, it's not," Michelle insisted. "Look, Clay's sister saw them _eating_ a _cop_, and she said that they'd seen her and that she had to barricade the door. She said that they 'weren't human.'"

"Like the old man out there," Morton added softly. "He said that too, just now, that it, whatever it was, 'wasn't human.'"

The look of dawning comprehension settled on Darren's face so slowly that Michelle felt the urge to scream. It couldn't possibly be _that_ hard to understand, could it?

"Shit," he finally said aloud, and the other two waited with bated breath… "That has to be the stupidest joke anyone's ever told me!"

Michelle groaned exasperatedly.

"It is _not_ a joke, you—!"

"YOU THREE! GET OUT HERE, NOW!"

The three employees jumped and bolted out of the room. Mr. Clay was kneeling over the body of the old man, who had apparently fainted, the dressing over his wound trailing slightly on the off-white tiled floor.

"He just fell—he's not breathing," the manager told them, his voice nearly panicky. "I can't feel a pulse, either! Call for an ambulance!" He ran outside, presumably to flag down any passing vehicles.

Michelle reached for the phone and hurriedly dialed 9-1-1, and, not wanting to look at what she assumed was a dead body, turned so that she stared at the notice board on the wall behind the counter.

_"We are sorry, but the line is currently busy. Please try again shortly,"_ chirped a female voice recording. Michelle cursed and hung up, then shakily redialed. This was not good…

Meanwhile Darren was staring down at the elderly man with a mixture of interest and revulsion. Finally, grudgingly, he turned to Morton.

"You weren't lying, were you," he told him. But Morton had turned chalk white as his dark eyes found the unraveled bandage around the body's hand. Cautiously, he bent down and pulled it away, and saw the crescent of teeth marks.

"No," he whispered, standing up and backing away. "_No!_" He turned to Darren, his eyes wide with terror. "Look at his hand. He's been _bitten_!" The special emphasis on the last word was not unnoticed by the young athlete, who turned a wary eye upon the offending wound.

"Naw..."—he glanced half skeptically, half inquisitively at Morton—"You don't think it's…y'know…do you?"

Morton didn't answer, busy as he was staring at the old man's face. Darren followed the younger boy's wide-eyed stare, and cursed loudly.

The wrinkled old mouth had opened in a snarl, the crooked teeth were gray, and the old man's eyes were wide open and misted with white. In a split second he was on his feet, and staring from one boy to the other, as if deciding between the two. Movement at the front entrance caught Morton's eye, and he gasped at the sight of a small mob of people outside, covered in blood, making their way to the doors with alarming speed. _'There's more of them!"_ And with that thought he was finally able to move his legs, and he realized what needed to be done. They had to escape. But where? He had seen the movies; he knew that if he tried to run to the backdoor he'd be overpowered in almost no time at all, and there was the possibility of more of them out there by now. But…

He looked around at the door to the supply room and grabbed Darren's jacket sleeve.

"What the hell," he demanded, still staring half-dazed at the zombie. Then he saw the gathering mob outside and bolted with Morton to the supply room. Morton had barely cleared into the room when the door slammed shut, but they didn't hear any sign of the old man. Then Morton's face, already pale, turned a few shades whiter. They had forgotten Michelle.

Michelle was still facing the bulletins, one ear to her cell phone (after the fourth failure of the landline she decided to switch) and the other ear covered with her hand to concentrate on whoever might answer the phone.

_"We are sorry, but the line is currently bu—"_

"FUCK!" she yelled out in irritation, snapping the phone shut. "Mr. Clay," she began, her voice trembling, "There's something wrong, nobody's…" She trailed off. She had turned around, and saw the old man standing upright and staring at her with wide, pale, inhuman eyes.

"Oh my God," she exclaimed, not noticing anything wrong at first. "Are you okay?"

He just stared at her as if in shock, then his lips pulled away from his teeth, and Michelle gasped at the blackening enamel. It was then that she understood, and started backing away, that this was one of the rioters they had heard about. The violent rioters. The cannibals.

_Ding!_

Michelle stole a terrified glance at the door; Mr. Clay had entered the store.

"Oh, thank God," she began, "Mr. Clay, help me—!" She stopped speaking when she saw that the manager was staring at her the exact same way as the old man. What was more, his throat was a dribbling mess of red, and part of his forearm looked as though it had been gnawed off.

_Ding!_

Another person, this time with half her face chewed to the bone, one of her eyes crushed and dangling.

_Ding!_

Two more entered this time, a pair of teenage girls with bite marks covering their arms and necks.

Nine eyes focused on her. Cold eyes. Dead eyes.

Hungry eyes.

There was a whole second of silence, then, as one, they leapt at her. Jagged teeth coated themselves in her blood as they tore through her tanned flesh. Nails scratched at her face. Shrill, unnatural, keening voices mixed with her raw screaming. Violent, white-hot ribbons of pain coursed through her entire body from each new wound as it formed, and she tried as hard as she could to block out the pain, until a frantic clawing at her stomach and the sight of her own entrails entering the mouths of her attackers finally made her lose what tiny shred of composure she might have had. The full realization hit her then. They were eating her alive. And there was nothing she could do about it.

_Ding! Ding! Ding!_

The bell kept ringing merrily as more of the undead 'rioters' joined the feast; the truckers and waitresses from the diner down the road, by the look of them. Michelle smiled, or tried to, anyways, and might have laughed at the irony of the situation had she had the strength, and had she not been sane enough to register the blinding, burning, ripping, tearing _pain,_ kept sane by that horrible little ring as even more rioters joined in.

God, how she hated that bell.

—End Chapter One.

* * *

Well, here it is! The first chapter to my first-ever story on I've been quite fond of all the wonderful zombie-themed stories in this section, and decided to try my hand at one. I have only this chapter and the second chapter written so far, and just a few vague ideas for the third, but after that I really don't have much planned. So feel free to send comments, suggestions and ideas my way

I _really_ had a lot of fun working on this chapter, and especially with all the different characters I've crammed in here so far. They were interesting to depict, and all of them are at least loosely based on people I know in real life. Michelle's character could certainly be applied to a lot of the snobs in my high school, but I decided to give her a bit more of a humanitarian side towards the end of her life, as there will be plenty of room for asshole deaths later on. I put the whole bell thing in there just for the irony of it

A couple people in here were made to represent certain themes, too. Mr. Clay represented denial; hopefully you were all able to guess at the family situation that had been going on well before the zombie takeover started and how that tied in with the present events. I had plans to keep him alive, but the part of me that loves punishing my characters won out at the last minute. XDD. As for Darren, try guessing what he symbolizes in the review that you're all ITCHING to write;D.

I tried to make this story more of a "show, don't tell" type of thing, so a lot of problems will make themselves known through dialogue and character actions rather than outright explanations. As they ought to be. I don't know about you guys, but I find it at least mildly irritating when authors launch into the life stories of all their characters in one paragraph.

'Til next time,

—Andrea


	2. 2: Leaving

Chapter 2: Leaving

* * *

"Talking"

_'Thinking'_

_Stressed

* * *

_

Anna Marx was by no means extraordinary. Her grades were average, her social life was average, and her family was average too—however less than ideal. She was strikingly calm in comparison to most of her peers; she was a dreamer, a thinker, and usually looked forward to the end of the week, when she could float about in her cloud of dreams without worry of provoking the teachers, who usually were fruitless in silencing the restless students and so would not disturb the placid teenager. But lately…her blissful daydreams had been replaced.

It was not her usual surreal, peaceful, bright visions that had distracted her for the last week. Rather than catching herself gazing into, rather than at, the blackboard, she felt as though her worries, thoughts, and dreams were cut off from her body, erased. Visions of dark, very realistic albeit foggy settings—and people—flickered over her vision. She blinked once, whenever these occurred, and she found herself back in her classroom as quickly as she had left.

Friday had arrived with images of shadows whipping around corners and dark, ever-growing crowds of people, obscured by the usual thick fog. The day had ended with that fog dissipating slightly, allowing her to see that crowd a bit more clearly. She thought, before the ending bell so rudely interrupted her musings, that she had caught glimpses of grayish faces, gaunt and staring with wide, empty eyes. Hungry eyes. _'Well, that couldn't be good,'_ she had thought cynically at the time; she rather resented this cloud of distinct darkness.

And now the weekend was here. The time of relaxation, for most, though for Anna, it was anything but. Urgent voices from the television set drifted from the floor below and punctured her delusional musings occasionally. Her mother's sharp voice pierced through the door of her room at the regular times. But they were temporary reprieves, and upon mounting the stairs and sitting at the edge of her bed, she would sink into a sullen, pensive mood. She calmly wondered for a moment, before sinking into a deep, fitful sleep, if she was going insane.

By Sunday she had taken to treading carefully and quietly around the two-storied house, and somewhat dreaded entering the dark landing of the first floor. That early morning, she had very nearly panicked at the sight of her stepfather's looming shadow, thinking without thinking that he was one of those sinister-looking fellows from her nightmares. But before she could scream or even flinch, he told her gruffly that the three of them were packing and leaving for their mountain retreat.

He had just got off the phone with her older half-brother, Darren, who was working at the gas station and would meet up with them at the cabin once his shift was over. In the light of this plan of action, Anna was able to seriously doubt that her brother had any intention of holing up with them until the riots ceased. Last she had overheard, he had found another too-skinny bleach-blonde girl to seduce.

And there were the riots themselves. The news stations were infuriatingly devoid of any live footage or information, and Anna was spared the dark daydreams by her own immense irritation at not knowing whether the suddenly dark daydreams she had had anything to do with what was happening in the cities. But she masked her impatience with her famous rationality and calm logic, and she approached late Sunday morning with an eerie sense of calm, as she slid into the back of the minivan next to her backpack of various articles of clothing and foodstuffs.

And after her mother took the wheel (her stepfather, even in this obvious emergency, still had no desire to be seen commandeering a minivan), they turned on the radio and listened to the reports that were apparently now flooding all the major radio stations. The Marx family learned that they were lucky; their long journey was devoid of any major highways and roads, and the heavily wooded back roads they needed to take led away from nearly all highly populated towns and cities where the riots were exploding.

Save for one.

Minneapolis.

But the closest they would get to the sprawling edge of the city would be about thirty miles, and with any luck they would avoid the violence altogether.

About three hours into the trip, the station they were tuned into announced a new report, and the three people in the minivan listened with utmost attentiveness.

_"Those in moderate to heavily populated areas are strongly advised to stay indoors, and to lock all doors and windows of the building. The rioters seem to attack on sight, so closing all curtains and blinds is also highly advised. The National Guard is forming street barricades and safe havens for the public at an average of ten-mile intervals, and those traveling are very strongly advised to seek shelter at those places. The rioters appear to be extremely violent on contact, and hospitals have reported numerous bite wounds on the victims. Any injured persons are also advised to travel to a hospital facility or safe haven and seek medical treatment immediately."_

"We should find one of those," Ben Marx suggested to his wife, with the annoying air of knowing better than the older woman. "It might be safer."

Samantha's steel-grey eyes flickered over to him for the briefest of moments, and she opened her mouth to speak. Whatever she had been about to say, arguing or not, was cut off by a loud '_Thud!'_ and a sudden jolt. All this was followed by a horrible screeching jerk as the woman hit the break. Anna's heart was pumping furiously fast; her light grey eyes were wide, and her face was easily as white as her knuckles as she clutched her seatbelt. After a moment, she eased her grip and took a slow, deep breath.

Ben was second to recover. He pounded his armrest, and a stream of curse words mixed in with incoherent yelling. After a few seconds he rounded on his wife.

"Why the fuck weren't you watching the road, you idiot," he screamed at her, his face turning red. "You've just fucking killed someone!"

This accusation seemed to rouse Samantha from her stunned disbelief.

"Don't you DARE accuse me," she snapped dangerously. "I'm not the only one who should have been watching the road."

Anna felt that this quiet, cold anger was much more effective—and impressive— than her stepfather's outright rage. Apparently he agreed—or more likely, couldn't come up with a viable argument—and he held his tongue.

"They might not be dead," Anna suggested in a small voice, looking out the back window, the crackling intensity of her mother's anger subsiding enough to allow for conversation. "They might just be stunned." She could see a shadowy figure lying still on the ground, obscured by the upset dust that surrounded the vehicle. She couldn't help but compare the dust to the fog that obscured the people in her daydreams. And suddenly, she wondered if there was a connection.

"You both stay put," Ben ordered suddenly, in an overly authorative tone, unbuckling his seatbelt and opening the door. He interrupted Samantha's protest with a loud slam. A few seconds passed in silence.

"Bastard…"

Privately, Anna agreed, but even at fifteen years of age, and in the midst of all this pandemonium, she highly doubted that her mother would allow her to mirror her impression of the man.

She was too quiet, too _demure_, anyways, as she was so often reminded, and it 'simply wouldn't do' to have her cursing, as she was so often cautioned. She had tried it a few times in the presence her friends. It never rolled off her tongue as easily as it had theirs. Especially that _one_ word.

Fuck.

_'Such a vulgar exclamation'_, she thought lightly. Next she realized, her mother's eyes were level with hers; hard and grey and slightly shocked. Anna was surprised slightly before it hit her—she must have cursed out loud as she had relived that afternoon in her head. Naturally, in the resounding silence, her mother would have heard her. She really must do something about that daydreaming tendency of hers. Especially now that the world had lost its marbles.

"What did you say," Samantha asked her in a low, but surprisingly soft voice.

"I said 'fuck,'" Anna replied recklessly. Why bother denying it now? "Why do you give a fuck about him?" The words poured from her mouth in a voice that did not—_could not—_belong to her. Her voice was normally so carefully measured, calculated, and consistent with her introverted, quiet personality. Now it was languid, fluent, unconcerned with social inhibitions. She found she rather liked it.

She unbuckled her seatbelt and made to open the door.

"What are you doing," Samantha demanded, still in that quiet, analytical tone; she was much more curious than angry, that much was certain. And, in Anna's newfound sense of rebellion, she couldn't be too entirely sure…but had that question ended with a note of _hope_? She smiled at her mother.

"He's not _my_ father," she replied in that new, lovely voice of hers. "_I_ don't have to listen to him. I'm not _going_ to listen to him. And you shouldn't either." When her hand reached the door, she glanced back with a slightly solemn expression on her face, but managed another smile as she added, "things are different now."

As she stepped outside, her new confidence flickered. What if her mother had just been too stunned to react at the time? Was she actually really angry? But her fears disappeared as the woman appeared from the other side of the car and gave her the most fleeting of smiles. 'About time,' Anna thought.

Ben was facing the car, but kneeling over the body of a young-looking man; apparently too busy checking his pulse to notice the girl and woman behind him. Finally, Samantha coughed slightly, making her husband jump a mile before jerking his head up to glare at the two.

"I told you two to _stay in the car,_" he hissed at them. "This son of a bitch is dead because of you." He jabbed his finger at the man's chest as he spoke, then pointed it at Samantha.

Anna noticed that the stranger's eyes were closed, and that he was indeed deathly pale, which for her was puzzling. If he'd only just died, then he wouldn't be that pale already, would he? No…he looked like he'd been sick for a while. Dying. And then she saw the distinct teeth marks on his exposed forearm, the blood long-dried, and her own blood chilled as her dark visions of yesterday replayed themselves in her mind.

At the sound of her mother and stepfather's rising voices, Anna quickly pulled herself out of her trance, keeping her eyes on the body and her ears trained on her mother.

"I heard what you said," Samantha told Ben in her frigidly calm voice, apparently arguing against his order, and noticing nothing about the body. "And I don't need—"

What she didn't need, she never got around to saying. Her eyes were now, along with Anna's focused instead on the young man.

His eyes had opened.

For a few moments, Anna's logic stayed with her. 'This is normal,' she thought. 'People's eyes are supposed to open a few minutes after they die. We learned that ages ago. Everyone knows that.' But she could not shake the feeling that something was terribly wrong.

Ben's mouth had opened up in a sneer at Samantha's apparent inability to speak, but the moment he looked down and realized what she had seen to cut her off mid-sentence, the younger man had sat up, his pallid face and overly bright blue eyes mere inches from Ben's. Ben's eyes nearly popped out of his skull as the suddenness of the victim's apparent recovery, and jumped about a foot away.

"Hey, buddy, are you oka—!"

His inquiry was cut off with a loud scream, his own scream of pain and terror, as the young man lurched forward with a feral snarl and latched onto Ben's neck with his teeth. Out of what must have been pure adrenaline, Ben managed to kick the smaller man away, sending him flying into the ditch.

"WHAT THE FUCK," he screamed, tears of pain streaming down his red face as he looked wildly around at his assailant, his hands at his own blood-covered neck. The younger man did not back down, however, and leapt to his feet, apparently completely uninjured from the van and Ben's kick, his face contorted with a wild snarl. His teeth were black. Dead. _He_ was dead.

Anna watched, half-terrified, half fascinated, and entirely unable to move as the man they had hit rushed towards her stepfather once more, at an unbelievable speed. She started when a hand grabbed her upper arm, but then found herself able to move, and followed her mother to the minivan as quickly as she could.

Ben followed about five seconds later, leaping into the front seat as Samantha restarted the vehicle, and slammed the door shut, his breathing ragged and harsh. Anna figured he had managed to put his attacker down for good(she couldn't bear to use the word 'kill' even in this surreal situation), when the stranger's contorted face appeared inches from hers, his bloodied fists pounding at her window, his now milk-white eyes locked on hers.

She opened her mouth to scream, but at that precise moment Samantha hit the gas, and the minivan lurched forward. Anna's scream came out as a gasp as she looked out the back window, and noticed the man running after them at a speed that no human had ever been seen to reach. No living human, anyways. But the minivan was faster. After a minute he was a dusty, black speck in the distance, and when they turned a corner, Anna finally exhaled and turned facing forward, her eyes searching out the wound on her stepfather's neck. He pulled his hand away as he reached for a fistful of Kleenex, momentarily giving Anna a perfect view of the bleeding, torn flesh and ominous bite marks. She would soon find out if her other theory was correct.

End Chapter Two.

* * *

Yay, another chapter finished!

Here you met a few new characters, but the only two really based on a real-life person was Ben Marx, Anna's stepfather, who is based on my former stepfather, and Samantha, who is based a _tiny_ bit on my mother. However, I decided to make her a more calm, rational thinker than her real-life counterpart, and this will come into play later. For anyone out there who thinks that she's lacking in emotion right now, I can only say that her blocking out her emotions temporarily is just her way of getting through the current situation. She shares Anna's intuition and has known all along that something wasn't quite right with…well, everything.

And then there's Anna. By now it should be obvious that she's going to be one of the gems of this story. She was actually inspired in part by Luna Lovegood, the somewhat eccentric Ravenclaw (the house of logic and sharp wit) from the Harry Potter books, and myself. It'll be interesting to see how she'll react throughout the rest of the story…

The third chapter will not be up for a while yet, as I'm still working out which P.O.V. to use. Again, any ideas or suggestions would be deeply appreciated.


	3. 3: Tragedy

Hello, all! Yes, here it is, a third chapter of this story But first, messages to my _three_ lovely reviewers:

**ImNotGivingMyNameToAMachine:** I was thrilled when you said you could find nothing to criticize. That means a lot to me. Hope you like this update

**Cory:** Believe it or not, Morton's _appearance_ was at least partly inspired by you. Save for the braces. However, when I stepped back and took a good look at how I described him, the first impression I had was the nerd from the "White and Nerdy" MV. Let's just say that he's a developing character.

**Kami-Sama:** Yay, another reviewer Wowies…Anna seems uncaring and tired? That's _certainly_ not what I was going for... I'm glad you like her, though.

To all the people who've been keeping up with this story and apparently not found an excuse to review: C'mon, people! Over 100 hits and only 4 reviews?! That makes me sad. So here're some ideas for you. I want to change the name of this story and need some help thinking of an original title that isn't…well, you know…_typical_. There are at LEAST five stories whose titles contain 'The End' on the front page of DOTD fanfiction. Any ideas?

Happy reading

Chapter 3: Tragedy

* * *

"Talking"

_'Thinking'_

_Stressed

* * *

_

­­­­­­­­­­­­The next half hour was filled with one of the most painful silences Anna had ever experienced. Nothing more exciting had happened apart from passing a few old-fashioned-looking buildings. There was nobody else in sight. She tried to distract herself by any means; the weather (_'It is a nice day, really'_), the light glinting off her mother's silvery hair (_'She probably used that new conditioner just before we left'_), anything to keep her eyes from straying to her step-father's neck.

She could feel that lighter part of herself, the daydreamy side that everyone around her knew her for, giving way to cold reality as the minutes of her digital watch ticked away. This…_whatever_ 'this' was, the change in the world, was changing her as well, and while she knew it would likely be to her benefit, she found the idea of not flinching at death or killing off an infected person a disturbing one.

But she simply couldn't help herself. Whenever Ben cursed in that low, growling voice of his, her pale blue eyes would search out the bite mark out of the morbid curiosity of what it must look like now. So far, she understood from her observations that the wound would either _"sting like hell"_ or else it was _"bleeding like crazy."_

Her record so far was three minutes and twenty-seven seconds.

"Jesus fucking Christ," Ben spat after a while, peeling the bloodied cloth away from his neck and inspecting it. "Sam, don't you have an emergency kit or something?" And then, after a moment… "God, this _stings_!" Inevitably, Anna gave in to the temptation to look at the crimson marks made outstanding by the slightly grayed, pale skin surrounding it. Then she sighed inwardly at herself, and checked her watch.

_'Four minutes and fifteen seconds,'_ she thought, her spirits raised a bit. _'A new record.' _

"Check the glove box," Samantha told him in an uncharacteristically sympathetic voice.

Anna stared at the back of her mother's head. In the light of all that had happened, the previous week of unusual daydreams (she was starting to call them visions), the reports of non-stop rioting (had _any_ progress been made?), and especially the attack from less than an hour ago, it hadn't occurred to her that first aid should even be bothered with. As far as she was concerned, all who were bitten died. There was no hope for them. How could her mother believe any different?

And then it occurred to her: Samantha had not noticed the bite mark on the arm of the man they had hit. She was probably still under the impression that that man was one of the crazy people they had heard about. The 'rioters.' And then, it clicked; the train of logic that her mother must surely be using.

The man was one of those rioters. He had heard them approaching on the gravel road, and waited out of sight until he jumped out in front of the vehicle. He had faked death until the small family was close enough to attack. When it became apparent that the mother and daughter would not approach any closer, the 'crazy' settled for Ben (who had obviously erred when searching out signs of life) and latched onto his neck, luckily missing the vital artery by a few hairs' distance.

As far as Samantha knew, it had just been a close call; a miracle that Ben hadn't been killed, and that this was, in essence, an ordinary wound that would heal in time. Why attack the neck, she didn't know. Why with the _teeth,_ she didn't know. Why attack at all, she didn't know. How the bastard had managed to stay up after Ben's brutal retaliation, she could only guess, but still she didn't know.

But Anna did.

"Nothing in here," Ben told his wife impatiently, shutting the glove box with a loud snap.

"Anna," Samantha called softly into the back, "check under the seats, will you? The first-aid kit should be back there."

Anna did not immediately respond. She stared sympathetically at her mother. How would she break it to her that there was no hope for her husband? Or worse, Anna realized with a slight shudder, how would she, her mother, react if (_'No, _when,_'_) he died and came back as a zombie, staring at her with overly bright, pale eyes before lunging over the armrest at her? How would she, Anna, react if she, stuck in the backseat of a moving vehicle, were forced to watch her mother being literally ripped and bitten to pieces, devoured before her eyes?

As soon as that last thought finished, Samantha looked over her shoulder at her.

"Anna?"

"Yeah, I'll find it," she murmured with a slight nod of her head, and she leaned down to peer under the seats, searching out the white aluminum box. She pulled it out from directly beneath her seat, and set it gently on the armrest between her mother and stepfather.

"Thank you," Samantha told her daughter, looking back at her for a moment once more, clearly worried. Ben merely grunted.

As she sat back in her seat, she pondered the inevitable death of her stepfather. If she were to be truly honest with herself…she wouldn't miss him in the slightest. For the last nine years that he and his son had lived with them, she had never gotten along with either of them. But Ben least of all. Anna was always too thin, too quiet, and not interested enough in what _he_ liked. His worst insult yet, declared as he had skimmed over her latest report card, was that she was 'too smart for a girl her age.'

Anna rarely held grudges. It almost never occurred to her to think badly of people. But that bastard, she thought as she glared at the back of his blonde head, fully deserved it. He was no credit to her family. He and his son were both idiots. Darren couldn't even appreciate that he had won a scholarship to that prestigious school in Minneapolis with his horrid grades. And Ben? Well, he had her mother, and he couldn't even appreciate that she put up with his immaturity. _'He _should_ die,'_ she thought. _'He deserves it. And Mom doesn't deserve his fate.'_ She resolved right then and there that she was going to alert her mother to the reality of what was happening. No matter how cold it would seem, no matter how cruel it would be for her mother to lose a second husband, Anna was _not_ going to lose her mother to denial.

"That man back there," she started, her voice strangely calm despite the flurry of emotions within her, "he _was_ dead, wasn't he, Ben?"

A pause, a silence, as her words penetrated his dull musings. Then, the predictable—

"What?"

"The man who attacked you. You felt his pulse. He didn't have a heartbeat. He wasn't breathing." She paused, allowing it to sink it. "He _was_ dead, wasn't he."

This time it was not a question. Her eyes remained fixed on the back of his head. She could hear her mother's breathing in the pause that ensued.

"Well, obviously he was alive," Ben finally answered in irritation. "He got up and bit me, didn't he?"

"And didn't stay down after you kicked him—_twice_," Anna told him. "Hard. I saw. He wasn't hurt by it at all. He even chased the van. Didn't you see how fast he was going?"

"He was definitely alive then," Ben grunted, as though this settled the matter.

"And you saw the bite marks, didn't you?"

Samantha's knuckles turned white on the steering wheel.

"Mom, did you see them?"

"No," was all she said.

"They were there," Anna insisted, "on his forearm."

"_I_ saw them," Ben said arrogantly, and at that moment it didn't matter to Anna whether he had indeed seen them or was merely trying to one-up his wife; he had just landed Anna one step closer to convincing her mother of what needed to be done. But zombies would nevertheless be a hard idea to get the logical woman to believe. Still…she had to try.

"Ben," Anna began, suddenly inspired, "how do you feel right now?"

"Like shit." The teenager rolled her eyes.

"No, I mean, do you feel off? Like, cold or anything? Achy? Like…"

"An infection," Samantha finished, her eyes glued to the road. "Do you feel sick, Ben?"

"Ehh…it ain't nothing I can't handle."

"Ben, I need to know," Samantha insisted, rifling through the first aid kit with her free hand, her eyes still not moving. "We have antibiotics in here. Who knows where those teeth were before he bit you?"

"In his mouth," was the smartass reply.

"Exactly."

Anna caught sight of her stepfather's disgusted reflection in the sideview mirror.

"Alright, I get it, let's get this thing cleaned up." He made to pull the first-aid kit towards him.

"No," Samantha told him, swatting her husband's hand away from the box. "We'll need to pull over." And she did, pulling over on their side of the road, next to a gas station that might well have been magical for its convenience to their situation. "Now wait here and keep the doors locked until we get back." She locked eyes with her daughter in the rearview mirror. "Anna and I need to go pick up some extra things."

Anna did not dare argue. With the comforting thought that she wouldn't need to beat around the bush with Ben out of earshot, she slid open the door and made her way towards the gas station, trailing behind her mother for fifty yard's worth of building silence.

"What do you mean by it," Samantha suddenly demanded in a hushed voice just outside the gas station.

"What? Asking how he is?"

"Anna," Samantha began warningly, "I…" She sighed and trailed off with a searching look at her daughter's face. "I don't know what's happening. And you…you've been acting strange the entire trip. The entire weekend, you've been…out of it. Do…" she sighed again. "Do you know what's going on?"

And the visions burned before Anna's eyes again for the first time since she had woken up that morning, dark, clear masses of people, people with bites, people biting, ripping, tearing into each other…the bites sprayed and oozed crimson, and the dribbling wounds glowed scarlet. A little boy lay prone on the carpeted floor of a bedroom, then slowly stood, looking around at Anna with wide, starving eyes, the scarlet blood splattered over his pajamas and face glowing brighter and brighter, scarlet jaws opening wide—

"Anna!" The girl snapped out of the nightmarish trance with a soft gasp, and refocused on her mother's now blurry face.

"Ben's going to die," Anna told her mother, a tremor of terrible sadness in her barely audible voice. "So _many_ are going to die. It's already started. It's happening right now." Samantha only stared with wide eyes.

"He's going to become one of them," her daughter continued, her voice slightly stronger now. "And then he'll attack you. And me. And everyone else he comes across. And then they'll end up the same."

"You think he's infected," Samantha murmured as she stood tall, looking over at the minivan. Ben's face shone pale and irritable through the window. "You had to warn me…that's why you asked. I thought that was odd. You asking about him," she added, catching Anna's eye. "It's no secret that you don't care for him, Anna."

"I promise, I'm not saying this just to get rid of him—!"

"But you _are_, Anna. By saying he's infected, by telling me that he's going to become one of them…even if it _is _true…you're saying what you've longed to say for all these years; that we're better off without him."

And as Samantha's piercing grey eyes met hers, Anna felt a sick, hot feeling of guilt clench her heart.

"But Mom…"

"We're not dumping him."

"I never said—!"

"But you meant it. We're not dumping him." Samantha sighed and ran a hand through her hair, and glanced over at the minivan, through the window at her husband. Anna followed her gaze, and saw the man still sitting, looking even paler than usual.

"Do you think I'm right," Anna finally asked softly. "What do you think is going to happen?"

"I honestly don't…Anna, look at this."

Samantha was staring at the glowing red numbers above the double doors of the gas station as though she couldn't quite believe what she was seeing. Anna copied her mother, and then looked away impatiently, not comprehending. Then she did a double take.

**24/7**

"Is _this_ the gas station Darren works at?"

"It might be," Samantha murmured, pulling out her map and checking it. "It looks about the right distance. Yes, I think this is it. This is the only 24/7 in the area, and I remember Darren mentioning working at one. He's probably inside right now." She made her way to the door. "Now's a better time than ever to pick him up." Anna made to follow her mother, but stopped dead in her tracks at the sight of a trail of thick crimson drops leading to the entrance. She suddenly felt winded as the possibilities of what that blood might mean flooded her.

"Mom," she began in a shaky voice, catching up to her mother, whose hands were pushing the door open as she spoke, "there's blood on the ground, don't—!"

_Ding!_

There were thirteen of them inside. All pale, vacant-eyed shadows of their former selves, with various amounts of curdling blood on viciously torn limbs. Thirteen heads turned in the direction of the bell. Thirteen mouths opened in a collective, feral, bloody hiss.

Samantha stood rooted to the spot. Anna saw her mouth open, as if to speak, but no sound emerged. What the teenager saw next nearly made her throw up.

A young woman lay on the floor next to the counter. Or rather, her remains. White ribs glared out from a mass of congealed blood and intestines that trailed several feet from her body. The ends looked mangled, almost as if—

"—they were chewed," Anna squeaked. Her feet were numb.

Only the young woman's hair seemed whole, a white-blonde mass drenched in a puddle of crimson. And the smell! It hit them like a tidal wave, the stench of death and decay, and the two living females stumbled back as though shoved.

That action was enough to rouse the standing Dead from their trance, and from what seemed like every angle, they leapt at their prospective meal, snapping and snarling.

Samantha screamed.

This more than anything truly terrified Anna. If her mother of all people lost control, then what hope could there be? But, as though in slow motion, her hand seized her mother's, and her feet carried her instinctively towards the minivan. After a moment, the lack of pull on Anna's arm told her that her mother was keeping up, and the two let go of each other simultaneously, both running faster than they'd ever run in their entire lives.

Anna reached the vehicle a split-second before her mother; she wrenched the right rear door sideways, slipped in, and slammed it shut, hitting the lock button with a frantic pound.

Samantha didn't bother running around to the driver's side either; she pulled Ben's door open and threw herself in, pulling the door shut just as a bloodied body slammed itself into the vehicle, snarling wildly. Anna reached through the gap between Ben's seat and the interior wall of the vehicle and hit the 'lock' button on Ben's door. She had just locked the other door in her row when, for the second time, she heard her mother scream.

Ben's face was almost as pale as some of the living dead that were still racing to the vehicle, but his eyes were still dark blue, and he might have looked human if it were not for the bestial contortion of his features, and the graying of his teeth as he snapped at his wife.

"MOM," Anna shrieked.

But Samantha was scrambling over to her seat, turning the key into the ignition as she did so. Ben, miraculously held in by his own seatbelt, only succeeded in scratching at her clothed arm with the tips of his fingers.

Samantha slammed her foot on the gas. But the crunching squelches of bone and flesh crushed beneath the tires barely registered with Anna. The passing grey faces, milk-white eyes, and the ashen teeth didn't faze her. The thirteen zombies disappearing in the minivan's rearview mirror gave her no sense of relief. Even Ben's rasping screeches went unnoticed. All that mattered, all that Anna could see, hear, or contemplate was the bleeding half-crescent dripping crimson trails down her mother's arm.

And the third chapter is….done!

I hated doing that to Anna, but I felt it necessary. Truth be told, Samantha was going to die anyways, but I hadn't really planned it out until I got to where she was inside the vehicle, and I was like "Waitaminnit! I should kill her NOW!" XD And as for Ben, well...he was doomed from the very beginning of this story.

Perhaps now, you're all wondering what became of Morton and Darren, who were locked in a room mere feet from where Anna and her mother encountered the zombies? Well, you'll find out…when I update again! WAHAHA!!!

—Andrea


	4. 4: Alive

Chapter Four: Alive

* * *

"Talking"

'_Thinking'_

_Stressed

* * *

_

Six hours.

They'd perched on the loaded crates and cardboard boxes of that storage room for six whole hours. The two males within the room had hardly dared to breathe for the first two hours of that time, both freezing in terror whenever the footsteps of the undead shuffled past their door.

After a few accidents they began to realize that the monsters didn't have the best hearing, and that as long as they were careful not to trip over or knock into anything, they could at least move around the room undetected. The two of them were both currently sitting on opposite sides of the room; Darren Marx hunched over his cell phone from his position on a particularly large cardboard box, and Morton Engle leaning back against the wall in the corner furthest from the door, hidden by a small stack of boxes containing Doritos. The latter stared blankly ahead, the morning's events replaying in his head as though taunting him.

Michelle was dead.

That much Morton knew, and he was sure that Darren knew it as well. The screams had been unbearable to hear, and he had felt a powerful mixture of relief and terror when they had finally stopped. Was Michelle one of them now, another zombie ambling out there among the shelves, staring at nothing, thinking only of warm flesh to sink her once-pearly white teeth into?

Morton closed his dark eyes and an image of her undead face stared at him. Cold white-blue eyes stared accusingly at him. Her mouth opened in a feral snarl.

_Why did you let this happen to me?_

Two tears slid down his cheeks and crept past his upper lip.

_Why didn't you _help_ me?_

Guilt clawed at his insides like beastly, inhuman fingers, fingers that might still be human, if it wasn't for him…If he'd only just grabbed her arm, she might still be…

_LOOK AT WHAT YOU'VE DONE TO ME!_

With a deep, shuddering gasp, he opened his eyes. A blank stretch of grey-bricked wall and a stack of cardboard boxes greeted him.

"You okay," a voice suddenly asked quietly from above him, nearly startling Morton out of his wits. He looked up and saw Darren's head staring down at him from behind the stack of boxes that hid Morton. It took a moment for it to sink in that words had actually been spoken. The first words he'd heard for hours.

"Y—yeah," Morton answered in a hoarse whisper. "Why?"

"You started twitching all funny. I…I thought…never mind." Darren turned away, presumably to return to his post, and Morton caught a glimpse of a broken mop handle in the young man's hand, which had been broken when the two had first made it into the room. And the realization of what it meant hit him as though he'd been punched in the gut with an icy fist. Darren thought he was turning. If he hadn't woken up in time… Morton shuddered.

"I guess I fell asleep," he muttered, standing up and leaning against the wall for support as he stretched out his legs. Darren grunted into his cell phone, the only confirmation he gave that indicated he could hear what the teenager was saying. "I wasn't bit," Morton added.

Darren froze and looked up at him.

"I'm not going to turn into one of them," the teenager added quietly, with a touch of defiance in his words. Darren opened his mouth as though to defend himself, but caught the hard gleam in Morton's eye, and closed it with a nod.

"Sorry."

Morton's expression softened slightly at the flicker of remorse, and he sat on a crate directly opposite of Darren, sitting higher up so that their eyes would be level.

"Morton Engle."

Darren looked up, the familiar look of confusion returned to his face.

"What did you call me?"

"No, I…" Morton sighed. "We haven't been formally introduced."

"So?" He looked back down at his cell phone.

"So I think we should be."

"But we know each other's names." After a moment, Darren looked back up. "Right?"

"You'd know for sure if we'd introduced ourselves sooner."

"Look, _Morton_, we're stuck here together. That's it. We're not friends. As soon as help gets here, I'm gone." He raised his hand as though to snap his fingers for emphasis, but with a glance at the door he seemed to think better of it, and set his hand back down.

"What makes you so sure that help is coming?"

"Dude, the Army's gotta be all over this by now. They'll probably get here tomorrow and blast those dead fucks to Hell."

"But what if they _don't_ make it?"

Darren opened his mouth to retort, but stopped, apparently for lack of argument. He looked at Morton fully in the face.

"I don't know."

"That's why we need to cooperate. We need to learn about each other. We don't need to be friends," he added impatiently as Darren opened his mouth again, "but we need to be allies if we're gonna make it through this. We can't count on anyone to save us. The more we know about each other, the more ideas we can come up with to get ourselves out of here."

Darren was silent for a contemplative moment before he spoke.

"Darren Marx." A ghost of a smile appeared on Morton's face as he reached for Darren's outstretched hand and shook it briefly.

"So," Darren started, looking a bit more relaxed, "_Did _you have some idea for how to get out of here?"

Morton stood and walked to a crate that sat below the room's only window, and stood up on it to get a view of the outside.

"There're cars out there," he murmured. "And this window can open. This is our best escape route for now."

"I thought that window was locked," Darren said quietly, stepping up onto the box next to Morton. "How are we—what the—?" Morton was holding a set of keys. "You steal those?"

"My uncle gave them to me."

"Who?"

"The manager. Mr. Clay. He's my uncle. I live—_lived_ with him. That was my mother he was calling earlier."

"Oh…oh yeah," Darren muttered. "The one Michelle was talking about." He didn't notice Morton's posture tense at the mention of Michelle. "I guess that explains why he lets you run the place sometimes."

"Yeah."

"So…okay, we could just leave right now, right? Just pack some stuff"—he gestured at the boxes that lined the walls—"and hotwire a car? My dad taught me how."

"Its not gonna be that simple," Morton countered with a sigh as he surveyed the area. "All those cars are within sight of the front windows. We wouldn't have time to hotwire anything. And we don't know if the keys are still in any of them. "

"Oh."

"And we also don't know exactly how many of these things we're dealing with. There were at least five of them approaching when we made it here. There could be ten by now. And who knows how many of them might be outside?"

Darren sighed.

"Well, we'll have to go out there sometime," he said. "I'd just pick a car and make a run for it, before any more of them show up. We can lock ourselves in until I get it running."

"We might not have to," Morton said, his hushed voice exited as he pressed his ear against the glass. "Hear that? It's a car! We can warn them and get out of here!" The teenager rifled through the keys hurriedly, almost feverishly as the faint crunching of gravel grew louder. Darren craned his neck to get a better view of the vehicle, which had just pulled over in their line of sight. It was a silver minivan.

"Holy shit," he exclaimed. The words echoed around the room, and for an endless moment in time, the world froze. Then the metal door shuddered beneath the weight of multiple bodies hitting it from the other side of the door. Growling and hissing accompanied the relentless pounding.

"What was that for," Morton cried, not bothering to check the keys, but trying them all randomly on the lock in his panic. "You might have just ruined everything!"

"That's my stepmother's van! And there she is, with her kid…Oh _shit_," he groaned. "They're coming in!" Morton froze and looked up in time to see a stern-looking woman with silvery-blonde hair and darkish eyes making a beeline to the store entrance, followed closely by a nervous-looking teenage girl with long, white-blonde hair.

"And there's Dad…" The two looked at the front passenger side of the vehicle and saw a man leaning his head against the window as though bored. His skin seemed ashen. "He looks sick," Darren said, looking at Morton with wide, slightly fearful eyes. Morton immediately registered the connection.

"The old man looked just like that."

"Come on; let's get this thing unlocked so we can get our asses the Hell out of here."

The second of the next two keys turned out to be the one for that window, but just as Morton slid it into the lock with a smooth click, the air went still with a piercing, high-pitched scream.

"C'mon," Morton yelled in a strangled voice, lifting himself up and through the window as quickly as his gangly limbs would allow considering the space. "They're running to the van!"

Immediately after Morton had fallen away on the other side, Darren heaved his own muscular body up and squeezed through the window with surprising speed.

He hit the dusty, sunlit ground with a heavy crunch next to the dumpster, and looked up to see his stepsister's door slam shut. A thin hand seized Darren's sleeve and pulled him back against the wall with remarkable strength as a small mob of zombies streamed past them towards the older woman, who had opened the front passenger door and hurled herself inside the van. Darren glared at Morton murderously.

"What are you doing," he hissed, "We have to get there!"

Morton merely shook his head, his expression terrified and sad all at once. His eyes were trained on the van. Darren followed his gaze just as a horrified cry of "MOM!" was heard from the back of the vehicle.

"Oh no…"

Darren's father was snapping and snarling at the woman, who was now desperately making her way to the driver's seat. Her husband reached for her with jerky motions, his eyes blank, his face ashen and grotesque. The only think keeping him from biting the woman was his own seatbelt. At first, she looked to have gotten away unharmed, but then her hands gripped the wheel, and both Morton and Darren could see the dark stain on her forearm.

Then the van's engine roared to life, and the zombies that had gathered in the front of her car were crushed. The van turned towards them, and for one wild moment, Darren thought his stepmother had seen the two of them and was coming to their rescue, but then the van swerved back onto the road and sped out of sight.

"No…no, this can't be happening," Darren muttered wildly, running his hands through his dust-covered blonde hair with a desperate expression on his face.

"Darren…"

"Damn it!"

"Darren, we need to leave." Morton's hand tugged on his sleeve; Darren jerked his arm away and stepped towards the few zombies that hadn't been run over or left chasing the van.

"DAMN YOU, YOU DEAD FUCKERS!"

Simultaneously, the three standing zombies' heads whipped in their direction, and the stupidity of what Darren had just done hit him.

"Darren, just follow me and RUN!"

At the desperation in Morton's voice, Darren's legs sprang to life.

"Oh shit oh shit oh SHIT!"

End Chapter Four.

* * *

HA! A cliffhanger! This better git me some REVIEWS!

I think this was one of my shortest chapters yet, even with a recap of chapter three mixed in!. Hopefully it was action-y enough for you XD

Oh, whatever shall happen next? Waitaminnit. I've got an idea. A funny idea (uh oh). But I ain't tellin' you people. You'll all just have to wait and see!

Hopefully you all noticed the character development, especially with Darren. Mind you, I'm still wondering whether or not I plan on killing him off, (though I'm _pretty _sure I'll end up doing just that) and if so, how he'll go. His future is highly uncertain at this point. So now, you've only got two characters that seem destined to stick around here. And you know what it means when the character bank starts going empty, right?! NEW CHARACTERS!! Any ideas and suggestions would be SO UNBELIEVABLY LOVED!!! Cause like I've been saying all along, this story's path isn't set in stone by any stretch of the imagination. I've left a lot of room here for audience involvement, because you'll likely be happier to read it if it has a little bit of you mixed in No ideas are too big or too small at this point. So…suggest away!

And just to clear up any confusion with timing and whatnot:

In chapter 2, Anna and her family left at about 10:30 in the morning (I believe I wrote 'late morning') and got three and a half hours into the drive to their 'retreat' (which you will be introduced to later on. :D) when they stopped at the gas station. So that made it 2:00 in the afternoon when the boys tried to escape with Anna and Samantha. And since they were stuck in the room for six hours prior to _that_, the gas station would have been attacked at about 8:00 in the morning. Yes, that sounds like a nice timeline.

I hope I've cleared up the issue of timing here. If not, do tell me

LUFF!!

--Andrea

By the way, my email is case you want to send your ideas that way instead of using a review.




	5. Author's noteCan you help me?

Author's note:

Just thought I'd let you know how the story is progressing thus far—or rather, the _creation_ of it—wouldn't want to spoil the actual story for you all, now would I?

Anyways, I have LOOOOOOONG since started on Chapter Five, which for you is good. However, it is coming along at such a ridiculously slow pace that I've actually skipped to Chapter Six. Neither chapter has seen much progress, and I honestly don't know when I'll be making my next post. Now that school has _finally_ let out (Yay, Graduation!), I might be able to get a chapter(or two) up very soon.

(I've also noticed that while my review count is unchanged, the hits have increased, so I know you've all been checking up on this story. And that makes me very happy. Kudos to each and every one of you who've been patient with me in these last...oh my god, has it really been _that_ long?? Eep!)

Here's the thing: the next two chapters, five and six, are with different points of view. Chapter five continues with Darren and Morton, while Chapter six goes back to Anna and her mother (and zombified stepfather, who was trapped by his own seatbelt last time XD). Really, it could go either way, where Chapter Five starts off with Anna instead of the guys, since any chance they have of meeting up won't happen until a bit later in the story.

So I thought I'd ask what you guys wanted; whose POV you wanted to see first. Cause once I know, I'll be able to focus on that and get it done faster.

Just thought I'd let you all know...

Lurve and chocolate-chippy fudgerific brownies, Andrea.


	6. 5: A Need For Escape Author's note!

Chapter Five: A Need for Escape  
~~~~~~~~~

"Talking"

_'Thinking'_

_ Stressed  
_~~~~~~~~~ 

"I can't fucking believe this."

"I know."

"I mean, this _really_ couldn't get any worse."

"Probably not."

"Of all the places to get trapped…of all the people to get trapped _with_..."

"Okay, that _could_ be worse," Morton finally objected. Darren snorted.

"Dude, I'm trapped in a fucking _dumpster_. With _you._"

"Better a dumpster than a port-a-potty." Darren paused, mouth open as if to argue, and then closed it.

"Yeah, you're probably right," he conceded with a grimace barely visible by the tiny ray of afternoon sunlight filtering through the dusty crack above them. "Especially if I were in there with _you_." At this, Morton said nothing. He shifted against the opposite side of the dumpster they had barely made it to, which was much emptier than he'd expected. He supposed that the trash must have been picked up just yesterday; there were only a few plastic garbage bags lining the back. The smell, however foul, was at least bearable. But that meant that the dumpster was lighter, and therefore easier to move, to tip over…

Morton shuddered. The three zombies on the outside continued to pound relentlessly on the lid. As long as there were only three, they probably didn't have to worry about being overturned. Especially since they hadn't yet figured out how to open the lid of the dumpster. But if more of them came…

"If we're quiet," Morton began in a low, quiet whisper, "they'll eventually go away. Or someone might drive by and distract them."

"How long would that take?" Morton shrugged.

"I don't know."

"I thought you knew about this kinda stuff," Darren said. "You're into that whole 'Zombies will take over' thing, aren't you?"

"There's a zombie survival guide," Morton admitted. "But I've never read it"—Darren scoffed disbelievingly—"so I'm guessing it could happen a few minutes from now, a few hours, or a few days. I don't know. So we need to be _quiet._"

"Okay," Darren raised his hands. "Geez, you don't have to get all snappy on me. I just thought you might have an idea."

"It's alright." Morton sighed quietly, taking his glasses off and wiping them with the front of his shirt. "We do need to come up with something, though. Didn't you drive here?"

"Bus," Darren grunted. "I walk about two miles from the bus stop just to get here." The athlete paused in thought. "Do you think that if we get out of _this_,"—he gestured at the garbage bags around him—"we could take the bus out of this place?"

It was Morton's turn to scoff.

"Hardly," he said. "Even if the bus isn't overtaken by now, where do you think it's headed? The city," he answered himself. "And you know what cities always have too much of, right? People," he answered himself again, his dark gaze hardening behind his glasses. "_Infected_ people. Like _them_." He jabbed his thumb in the direction of the moaning outside the dumpster. "Only, if the other people there are _lucky_, and _intelligent_, they'll set up a Goddamned _quarantine_,"—Morton's voice trembled as he said this, and Darren eyed him curiously—"so that some of them _might_ get out alive."

His little speech ended in a hoarse whisper, and he averted his overly bright gaze as a smirk spread over Darren's face.

"No fucking way," Darren muttered. "Don't tell me that you're crying over your dead mommy _now._ You need to help figure a way out of this."

"Help you," Morton repeated, his expression stony. "_'Help you?'_ _I'm_ the one with the fully functioning brain here. Do you honestly believe that you can get out of this without me?"

"Yeah," Darren nodded. "Yeah, I do. You listen to _me_," he said, leaning towards the smaller male and jabbing his forefinger into his own chest. "I admit that I push the little guys at school around. And that I give _you _a hard time here_._ And I admit that you're smarter than me, and that if you were my own size, I probably would have never messed with you." He leaned forward even more, so that the thin beam of light illuminated the gold of his dusty hair. "But you're _not_ my size, and you don't have my speed or strength. So you can be as smart as you want, _Morty_, but at the end of the day, all that matters is that I can _outrun_ you." He leaned back against the wall of the dumpster, his own normally light blue eyes unnaturally dark. "If I tipped this thing over—and believe me, I could—all I'd have to do is _run_, and your _fully functioning brain_ would be zombie chow."

Morton just stared for a few moments in alarmed silence.

"Would you really do that to me," he asked, still in a quiet whisper. Darren stared back, his expression blank save for a slight crease between his eyes.

"Would you leave me no choice," he asked in return. Morton sighed so softly that even he could barely hear it, and shook his head no, feeling slightly ashamed at his near-outburst. "Then, no, I won't," Darren said, his eyes closing slightly as though very tired. "Besides, you _are_ smarter than me."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

...HIII!

:D

It has been a long time, a shamefully, horribly long time, since I have updated. A lot has happened in my personal/academic life and when I left school, I took on work and forgot about not just this but many, many, many of my other stories. But, I am here now, and I wanted to post what I had written of Chapter Five for you.

This chapter is of course unfinished, as you can probably tell by the length and how abruptly it cuts itself off. And you can probably tell that it is quite old, given how illogical some of this stuff is and how poorly written (at least I believe) it is. It hasn't been touched since I worked on it, shortly before going to college...I still cannot believe that it has been this long.

I have recently undertaken a massive reorganization of ALL my written files, and that's how I found these, having forgotten that I'd transferred original files from the family computer to my then-new laptop, which I still use! :D I cringed a bit when I looked them over, but to be honest, I have too much affection for this as my first ever post to just scrap it.

I believe it to not be totally beyond redemption and I intend to remake it, and we shall see if my writing has improved at all over the years, yes?

As I work quite a bit, I cannot make any promises on specific timing. All I can say is that this is still my baby, and I haven't given up on it.

For those who haven't given up on it either, thank you. I hope to see you again here soon! :D

-Andrea


End file.
